Ubisoft is pulling the plug on XDefiant and will be shutting the game down less than a year after its official release. XDefiant is the latest live service game to suffer from the lack of player enthusiasm in an oversaturated industry. However, while Concord is likely the biggest flop of 2024, XDefiant spells further bad news for Ubisoft who has seemingly thrown money at multiple live-service games in the past few years only to cancel them before launch or shut them down afterwards.
Ubisoft says XDefiant will shut down in June next year. As of today, no new players are being accepted onto the server so if you don’t have an XDefiant profile, you won’t be able to play the game. Existing players can enjoy the shooter up until 10 June.
XDefiant had a rocky launch. The game was originally scheduled to be released before the end of 2023. However, the shooter didn’t pass the Xbox and PS5 certification at the time which delayed it further into 2024. Players waited months for the game with very little feedback from Ubisoft in regards to its state.
After months in hiatus, XDefiant finally released and according to Ubisoft, outperformed its expectations. The company claimed it amassed more than 10 million players in the first two weeks and had a strong average player count per day. However, recent player counts started to dip below 20,000 and interest in the shooter has dwindled.
Ubisoft is likely cutting its losses at this rate by shutting down XDefiant. The live-service game relies on server costs and new content development. Both cost money and with no players in the game, is a waste.
According to Ubisoft, Season 3 of XDefiant will still release and all content and progression in the shooter will be accessible until 3 June. Of course, that is if you already have access to the game. If you didn’t play XDefiant before 3 December, you won’t be able to jump in.
The game will remain available to all players who joined XDefiant before December 3rd, 2024. All functionalities, including progression, events, rewards, and achievements, will continue to be available until June 3rd, 2025.
Source: Ubisoft
